Quick Guide – Windows Mobile Software and Pocket PC’s How PDAs save companies millions – and how they can work for you by Focusing on Data Augmentation, not just Office Automation Fred Colbert, President Cert. Level III Colbert Infrared Services, Inc. 929 19th Avenue Seattle, WA 98122 Tel: 206-568-4431 Fax: 206-568-4437 www.ThermalTrend.com www.colbert-infrared.com Abstract Today, mobilizing Thermographers with Pocket PCs is benefiting the infrared industry in ways never imagined just a few years ago. The Pocket PC’s impact has shown up “on, as well as in” IR cameras, and as stand alone Pocket PCs coupled with bar code scanners, and running IR PdMinspections databases with augmented user interfaces for automated data entry and retrieval. The operating system for the Pocket PC is very friendly and simple, making the roll out of Pocket PCs to your workforce very easy with no extensive training required. Virtually a pick up and go device, at a price of $250.00 US or less, they are a smart hardware platform to mobilize your infrared thermographers. Simple Fact: Infrared cameras produce a lot of data. The typical report generation time ratio of a professional thermographer of in the field inspection time vs. in the office report generation time is 2 to 1. Eight hours in the field equals four hours of post inspection report generation time. The future has never looked brighter for the easy to implement methods for the office automation and automated data collection in the field, allowing thermographers to spend less time typing up reports. Thereby decreasing down time of thermographer and IR programs, while increasing by 50% or greater, the up time availability of additional services. However, for the benefits of using a Pocket PC to be fully recognized, the focus must not be placed on just the office automation and data collection, but on how the data is presented to the thermographer on the Pocket PC during their inspection. 1 The principal of how the data is presented / augmented is more that just a slick user interface (UI), because if it’s not the right information at the right time in the work flow that’s easy and intuitive to work with, then the benefit of office automation and automating the data collection in the field will be completely lost. The focus must be placed on a knowledge delivery system, not on a data delivery system, whose primary focus is on presenting the data in a meaningful and useful way that will be of benefit to the thermographer in the field, enriching him with not just data, but with valuable information and knowledge during the inspection. This paper covers the benefits to the thermographer in the field and the IR program of utilizing Pocket PCs and database with an intuitive user interface designed for how thermographers do their job in the field. · Data collection (input, edit, omit and delete) of equipment and items / problems. · Review, of route / equipment inspection items to be tested, as well as past items / problems. · Reconciliation, updating the past items / problems that have been found. A major emphasis of an IR program is placed on the professional accountability of the thermographer, their testing methods and the information that is gathered into the report, to ensure that not highest standards are set, but that nothing less is acceptable when we consider the consequences that something got missed. No one can afford missing a single problem that potentially leads to a catastrophic failure. Pocket PC’s Today The Pocket PC is revolutionizing the way that people work with data on the go. The computer industry is expecting that in 2004, more Pocket PCs will be sold then conventional computers, and they are ramping up to the technology. For example, Dell, Toshiba, and HP all have Pocket PCs selling for under $250.00 US. The standard, off the shelf, Pocket PC comes with a complete set of standard Microsoft Office applications including Word, Excel, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Media Player, Voice Recorder, etc., and fantastic hand writing recognition software that allows for fast and easy data input and editing. Microsoft ActiveSync software comes with every Pocket PC, which allows you to automatically synchronize the data files on your Pocket PC with your desktop computer so that information is easily transferred between the two devices seamlessly. 2 The Pocket PC platform also allows for the ability to install additional software and hardware integration like bar code scanners or GPS navigation systems. Additional features of the Pocket PC platform is the utilization of technologies like Blue Tooth and Wi-Fi for data transfer and wireless internet-intranet network connections, as well the Pocket PC Phone that integrates the features of the Pocket PC with a cell phone. Clearly, as thermographers, we must look at how this technology can be put to the best use, capitalizing on the advantages that these devices offer in the way of office automation and data collection, but we must be vigilant in making sure that we implement them in the correct way to maximize their benefits. Understanding not just the differences between office automation, automated data collection and data augmentation, but also their strengths and weaknesses is the key to successfully utilizing the Pocket PC for thermographers. Presentation of data is vital to a workable solution to office automation and data collection. · Automated Data Collection is based on the Principle of Office Automation. The automated collection of data to help in automatic generation of reports. · Office automation is based on the principal of automating office work. Using software programs and computers to automate time consuming tasks. · Data Augmentation is the “foundation” that makes it all work. How the information is presented and worked with in the software’s user interface is the underlying structure of what makes it all work. If this point is missed then the whole system will fail! 3 Yesterday… Technology made great strides with the introduction of the Personal Computer (PC) and the ability of IR cameras to digitally store the IR image. This has allowed us the ability to replace Polaroid film and videotape of yesterday’s IR cameras with a Flash memory card and the typewriter with the computer. Many of today’s IR programs utilizing computers are actually based on the old “Paper Work” flow model of how paper forms flow through the office for report generation. Programs like Word, Excel, or IR report generation software are methods of Office Automation. “Office automation’s focus is about automating the paperwork of secretaries” (Doug Engelbart…1968 The introduction of digital text editing, and the birth of office automation). It has become much easier to fill in forms and generate a report on a computer as compared to using a typewriter since you can easily go back into the form/report and correct spelling mistakes and insert the digital images and thermograms into the document. With a portable notebook computer, pen tablet, or even a Pocket PC, and programs like Microsoft’s Word and Excel, the thermographer can go out into the field and start the office automation and data collection process by entering the data directly into the report forms or templates. However, this will only bring the work that is normally done in the office, out into the field for the thermographer to do while he is doing his inspection. Although typing up the report in the field helps to reduce the amount of report generation time back at the office, it does not help the thermographer do his job better while performing the inspection if it is not implemented correctly. The key problem is that porting office applications to the small screen Pocket PC does not work to the thermographer’s advantage. The work flow of a thermographer while he is performing an inspection in the field will not match up with the work flow of someone typing up a report back in the home office. Thermographers have specific needs in the field regarding the way that the information needs to be structured so that they can gain quick and easy access to the data. 4 Implementation of data on a non-augmented user interface for the small screen size of a Pocket PC: Examples of paper work flow designs in software and database programs are ones that require you to open up a window/form, type your information into the form and press a button to move on to the next window/form. These fixed designs are typically based on the underlying premise to force you to fill out forms, without taking into consideration the needs of the thermographer’s flexible working patterns and the need to present, review, reconcile, enter and edit critical data in an intuitive manner during the inspection. Anyone can port office applications over to a Pocket PC to be used in the field for office automation, but that is really missing the point. The key is that just filling out fields on computerized forms in the field is not a workable solution for thermographers. It’s like having some computer geek telling you…how to do your job! An augmented user interface presents data in the way that thermographers do their job… Although the natural migration for office automation is from the desktop computer to the Pocket PC to automate data collection in the field, the real focus must be placed on data augmentation for the benefit of the thermographer and the IR program. It is easy to port over the Microsoft Word, Excel or a database, based on paper flow model of forms to be filled out in the field, but you are really missing the most important advantage of having the Pocket PC in the field….